Engineers demand a plan

The engineering profession has labelled federal government reforms to increase participation in higher education “a disaster" for industries that are suffering a shortage of engineers and billions of dollars in related cost blowouts.

A report to be released by the Australian National Engineering Taskforce today says the implementation of a student demand driven system – whereby universities will be fully funded to enrol as many eligible students as they like from 2012 – is unlikely to alleviate the engineering skills crisis.

This is because there is an under-supply of candidates coming through secondary schools. Universities will therefore simply enrol more students into other courses.

The taskforce – which comprises APESMA, Engineers Australia, the Australian Council of Engineering Deans, the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and Consult Australia – is pressing for “interventions into the education system and graduate supply", including investment in senior secondary participation in the sciences and mathematics.

It also says policymakers should examine the use of funding agreements, or compacts, which are being negotiated with individual universities to motivate institutions to raise the work-readiness of graduates.

“This problem has become so entrenched over 20 years we’ve got to use a bit of dynamite to blast – to focus – minds on just how serious and what a cost the problem is," Chris Walton, chief executive of APESMA (the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia) said.

“This is the frog in the increasingly boiling water . . . and the thing that we know will be a disaster is just leaving it to a [student] demand model."

Mr Walton said industry was quick to “jump on the migration lever" as the solution, but given that there was a significant shortage of engineers globally this was not a serious medium-term solution.

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The report highlights that the skills shortage is estimated to cost projects valued over $1 billion 20 per cent, or $200 million, in blowouts and will lead to $2.7 billion of road construction and maintenance work forgone between 2012-14.

Demand for rail engineers and civil engineers already outstrips demand by 40 per cent – and that is before skills needs increase as new projects come on line.

“In 2010, the skills shortages in engineering have been highlighted as a key constraint on a resources-led economic recovery," the report says.

The report highlights attrition rates of 40 per cent in engineering courses, a mismatch between courses and skills demand, and insufficient industry internships and on-the-job training. It notes that incentives may be required to encourage students to enrol in relevant courses and says a greater role for internships would potentially better support a student demand driven system.

According to Engineers Australia there is currently a shortage of 20,000 engineers. It estimates that 70,000 engineers will have retired between 2006-11, while just 6000 graduates enter the workforce a year.

The group’s chief executive, P
eter Taylor
, said there was some merit in a student demand driven system but there had to be interest from students in engineering careers for it to benefit the profession, and this was lacking.

While engineering students are required to undertake some form of industry experience during their degree, Mr Taylor said there were few paid cadetships since the public service had down-skilled and moved to contract out much of its work.

He said paid cadetships could incentivise students to undertake engineering degrees, which were more costly and provided fewer opportunities for part-time casual work than other shorter and less onerous degrees.

“There has been an increase in the annual [engineering] enrolments at university for the last few years but being a four-year course we’re still to see the results come through the pipeline in terms of graduates," he said.

According to the Australian Council of Engineering Deans, domestic engineering enrolments have grown 10 per cent a year for the past five years.

By 2009, the latest official figures available, engineering students represented 7.5 per cent of all commencing bachelor degree students, up from 6.2 per cent in 2005.

However, the number of students entering degrees in law, business and society was about 10 times that, deans council president John Beynon said. He said engineering faculties were bullish about 2011 enrolments and were not nervous about the move to a demand driven system given the continued growth in enrolments.

Professor Beynon, dean of the faculty of engineering at Swinburne University of Technology, said universities were working to improve the retention of engineering students and providing pathways into engineering degrees through foundation programs. But the under-supply of engineering graduates was a cultural issue, with school students preferring other subjects, he said.

“That is why many universities are looking at ways to provide foundation programs so students can spend a year before their bachelor program converting, picking up that lost mathematics or physics; whatever they need to put them on that track," he said.

While the council believes there is room for industry to offer more student internships, it says faculties need to be more flexible in releasing students at times other than over the summer break.